Return to Lordship Road

Photo of the grave of Richard Wombwell, husband of Maria West, from Old St. Mary, Stoke Newington.

At some point in the early nineteenth century, Zacharias Wombwell and Richard Wombwell, first cousins, found themselves living next door to each other in Lordship Street, Stoke Newington. Both were involved in the animal world, Zacharias being a cow-keeper, and Richard having become a livery stable keeper. 

Judging from the conversion of an elephant house into a living room, as reported by Zacharias's son, George Wombwell junior, it is a fair presumption that the two Wombwell cousins were playing some part in the expanding operation set up by an older brother of Zacharias and set to make waves across the nation as Wombwell’s menagerie. 

Richard may have been the first of the Wombwells to make the trip down from Essex to London, and in 1798 or earlier had become romantically acquainted with an Irish émigré, Maria West, on the run for reasons unknown from County Down. Four daughters emerged from their union, two of whom survived to adulthood. The younger sister, Harriett Wombwell, was the great-grandmother of Hetty Jane Owen and married a mariner, Charles John Robinson. Their story will be continued in due course. 

The older sister, born prior to the marriage of her parents was Sophia Wombwell - not to be confused with the Sophia who was the first wife of James Wombwell, nor indeed the Sophia who was the sister of both James and George Wombwell junior!